Alps Electric Co., Ltd. (Ota-ku, Tokyo; President: Toshihiro Kuriyama) today announces that in July 2016 it entered into a licensing agreement with Immersion Corporation (San Jose, California, U.S.A.; President and CEO: Victor Viegas) relating to force feedback technology for use in touch pads for the PC market.
Founded in 1948, Alps Electric has been conducting research and development related to products in the field of human-machine interfaces (HMI) for many years and has built up advanced technological capabilities and an extensive track record developing and manufacturing switches, TACT Switch™ products and various other input devices and integrated modules. In the latter half of the 1970s, the company led the industry applying HMI expertise accumulated in the consumer devices market to the automotive electronics domain. As well as assisting integration of electronics into vehicles, Alps Electric has continually churned out innovative HMI products. In 2002, the company entered into a licensing agreement relating to force feedback technology for automotive electronic equipment with Immersion, a leading developer and licensor of touch feedback solutions, and went on to develop a new product since adopted by the automotive market. The HAPTIC COMMANDER™ allows integrated, intuitive control of audio, navigation, HVAC and other in-vehicle systems.
Force feedback is garnering a lot of attention right now amid rising hopes for application in electronic devices like smartphones, PCs and virtual reality (VR) devices, both as a means to enable intuitive, natural control of functions and as a technology for making devices smarter and more sophisticated.
The new licensing agreement with Immersion relating to the use of force feedback technology intellectual property and know-how in PC touch pads lets Alps Electric add feedback functionality to existing touch pad controls. Expected uses include confirmation of input with just a single touch pad action and accompanying click sensation, as well as enabling of controls relevant to an identified application-specific status.
Alps Electric will also use the stronger ties with Immersion to stimulate development of HMI products with high added value by bolstering its lineup of HAPTIC™-associated products.
*HAPTIC is registered as a trademark in Japan, China and the European Union (JP4619342/JP5471286, CN4730821/CN4730822/CN4730823, CTM4399606), and is used in commerce as a trademark in the United States, being enforceable under common law.